She told a police officer who came to her apartment that she thought her son was going to hurt people, possibly at a school. He had a growing obsession with guns and violence, and she had discovered him watching videos of school shootings. He got in trouble for making threats at school and carrying a pocketknife. A teacher had overheard him telling his classmates how to make pipe bombs. He had an outburst earlier that day, which was in September 2019. Officers searched her son’s bedroom, where they found his diary, which was later turned into an arrest warrant. He wrote about committing a massacre, calling it “destiny.” He made threats to kill his mother, her boyfriend, and students and staff at an Oklahoma City school where he once attended classes. It listed who would live or die. He wrote that he would then kill himself. Police took her son to a hospital for a mental health evaluation after Ms. Vasquez, a 42-year-old call center operator, signed an emergency order deeming him a danger. She left the hospital after filling out the admission forms, with tears ready to fall. It was a decision no parent expects to make, and one that some of her family members criticized. “I had to save all of us from what could happen in the future,” Ms. Vasquez said. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure my child is safe, I’m safe, and the public is safe, and I’m not going to apologize for that.” As mass shootings by young people have become more common, so have the questions asked in the aftermath: Were there signs of potential violence? Could someone do something? The questions have become more urgent after attacks like the one at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., where seven people were killed, and at a school in Uvalde, Texas, in May, where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. For parents dealing with disruptive behavior, reporting their child to the police about an act they may have committed is a daunting decision. These parents fear the consequences — emotional, social and legal. Even after the decision is made, they often wonder if the police can get their children to the help they need.
Mrs Vasquez and her son.
Photo: The Wall Street Journal
Mrs. Vasquez shuddered at the thought that something was missing from her son’s case. Her son, she said, has spent much of his life in counseling since he began showing signs of emotional problems at age 3. She said he was hospitalized at age 7 after trying to jump out of a moving car. More recently, he said, he had angry outbursts and punched holes in walls. He wanted a gun, Ms. Vasquez told police, but refused to buy him one. Although she had no weapons to carry out an attack when she notified police, she said, she worried she might meet others who could help. Her son, now back with his mother, said in an interview that at the time his diary was found, he was angry about his life, including poor progress in treatment, a harsh childhood in poverty, a sense that he abandoned by his mother and being bullied at school. He wasn’t on consistent mental health medication at the time, she said, and “his paranoia was through the roof.” As for the focus on mass shooters, he called it a passing interest. He said he doesn’t think his mother needed to get the police involved and is still upset she did. Some of Ms. Vasquez’s relatives also questioned whether she had gone overboard by involving the police. “Some people thought maybe she lured him to get him out of the house,” said Susan Tate, Ms. Vazquez’s mother. Mrs Tate said she had also noticed her grandson’s behavioral problems and fixation on violence. The diary found by police, detailed in the arrest warrant, contained depictions of violent scenes, including people hiding under classroom tables to escape an assailant, a promise to cause more havoc than Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and an entrance called the anniversary of the Columbine school massacre a day of celebration.
Ms Vazquez’s son said he has changed a lot since he kept his diary.
Photo: The Wall Street Journal
“I want to kill and take revenge on humanity the government. management and the other guys,” he wrote. “I have few equals. I hate them all! I have been betrayed, this world does not deserve me, they will see that everyone will see.” Ms. Vasquez hoped that contacting the police would help her son get long-term mental health care, something he was struggling to do. Her son has a separate medical problem, she said, and the facility told her they didn’t have the staff to address his needs. Instead, he said, he received short-term hospitalization. He also received a felony charge of planning an act of violence. The problem of finding mental health services is a frequent problem for families trying to intervene before a child becomes violent, said Frank Straub, a licensed therapist and director of the Center to Prevent Targeted Violence, which maintains a database of incidents in which school violence plans. caught before they could be executed. Community services often have long waiting lists, she said, and a lack of adolescent-focused psychiatrists means families often turn to pediatricians or family doctors who aren’t always equipped to look for warning signs. In a Justice Department-sponsored study released by Dr. Straub last year, investigators reviewed 171 incidents of school violence averted since April 1999—defined as a shooting, bombing, stabbing or other violent plot planned to take place on school property. Most of the cases involved lone actors with plans to use firearms. Peers, able to overhear classmates talking about conspiracies or see posts on social media, reported violent plans in about 51 percent of the incidents prevented, according to the analysis. School staff, including resource officers, discovered the plot 18 percent of the time. Parents of suspects reported about 4% of cases. Blake Johnson, a 10-year-old in Hudson, Florida, remembered his mother’s lesson about talking about things that matter to him when a classmate revealed in a school restroom in 2019 that he had a gun in his backpack. Blake, then 8, thought it was fake at first, but his classmate pulled out a gun to prove it and threatened to hurt him if he told anyone. “He said he was going to shoot me in the head,” Blake said, adding that a friend who was also there told him not to tell anyone. When the other boys in the restroom dispersed to go to class, Blake told a school security guard what happened. A search of the backpack turned up a loaded 9mm handgun, police said. Laynie Johnson, Blake’s mother, said her son suffered some anxiety after the incident and transferred to another school last year after the student with the gun returned to campus.
Laynie and Blake Johnson in 2020.
Photo: Eve Edelheit for The Wall Street Journal
A 2019 Wall Street Journal analysis of nearly thirty dozen mass school shootings found that most shooters planned the attack weeks or months in advance. Those working to prevent violence say educating peers, parents and community members to speak up if they see something troubling is key. Several states, including Colorado and Florida, have developed anonymous reporting systems that students are encouraged to use. A study following the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 students and staff, found 69 documented instances of violent or disturbing behavior by the shooter, including killing small animals, posting about guns on social media, and of physical harm. family members. In Centennial, Cologne, at least 10 high school students had concerns about a classmate’s gun ownership and anger issues, according to another study. One told a counselor about it before his classmate shot and killed a student and himself in 2013. Failure to act has led to consequences for some parents, although this is rare. In December, two parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter after their 15-year-old son was accused of gunning down four students at his high school in Oxford, Mich. Prosecutors claimed they bought him a gun even though they knew he was troubled. The perpetrator and his parents had met with school officials to discuss his behavior hours before the incident. The parents have pleaded not guilty, as has their son, who faces charges of murdering the four students. Nichole Schubert struggled with what to do after finding her son’s diary on a cluttered dining room shelf in September 2019. In it, the then-17-year-old laid out a plan for an attack on April 20, 2020, the anniversary of the school massacre Columbine, according to a police report. He would go on a rampage at 5am killing his mum and her boyfriend, the magazine said. He was finishing it at school, arriving at 12:20 p.m. to start filming. “Kill everyone possible, fight to the death or kill yourself after maximum damage,” he wrote in the magazine, according to the police report. Her son, now 20 and who does not live with her, did not respond to requests for comment. Mrs Schubert had found what she believed to be bomb-making materials in her son’s bedroom several months earlier. At the time, she said, her son was on probation for using marijuana…
